OB Rag

By Thomas Ultican / Tultican / March 10, 2022

Attorney Cory Briggs has filed a suit against San Dieguito Union High School District (SDUHSD) over their new Trustee Area map. California law requires school districts to rebalance the board member areas after each decennial federal census.

Led by Trustee Mike Allman three of the five district trustees apparently decided to use this requirement for political advantage. In the process, the suit claims they not only broke the spirit of the law but actually acted illegally.

by Ernie McCray

I’m wallowing in the good feeling I was left with after spending time in a park with Marley, my six-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter.

I keep thinking how just a very few years ago we wouldn’t have survived an hour or two together, alone.

Because of what you might say: communication problems. I could hardly understand what Marley was saying when she was a bit younger

The City of San Diego Library Director has just announced that the Ocean Beach branch will reopen for six day service by the end of this June.

The OB branch, along with branches in Mountain View and Clairemont have been closed while most of the 36 branches have reopened. Two – North Clairemont and Serra Mesa-Kearny Mesa — have been partially closed.

Library Director Misty Jones said the city has finally hired enough new library workers to fully reopen all city branches by June 30, the end of the fiscal year. Jones did not provide specific dates for the Ocean Beach Library reopening,

The 2022 Annual Board election for the Peninsula Community Planning Board was scheduled for this Thursday, March 17.

But, since only 5 candidates submitted applications for the five open Board seats, the Board leadership decided to cancel the election. In a statement on the PCPB website, it said,

“the election will not take place and eligible candidates will be appointed by the Board at the March Meeting and start their terms in April.”

After gracing our shores for 75 years, OBcean Jeff Stone has left us. Jeff passed at 5 minutes after 12 noon on Tuesday, March 8 – International Women’s Day.

His is survived by his spouse Carole of fifty some years, his sons C.J. and Cody, and many friends.

Born on May 25, 1946, in New Jersey, Jeff did a stint in the US Army, and afterwards lived in Philadelphia, Canada and the Bay Area. Jeff and Carole were introduced to each other by a good friend in 1972 in Berkeley and they then lived together from then on. Their journey together took them to Philly where Jeff worked as a leather craftsman.

The couple ended back on the West Coast, lived in Venice, California for a while and eventually found their way to San Diego.

Through Mayor Gloria’s “Sexy Streets Project”, 2.5 miles of streets will be repaired in District 2 in 2022.

From a December 20, 2021 memo from the mayor’s office to the City Council, the mayor outlined which streets and roads would get fixed in each city council district.

From the Memo:

In August 2021, City Council approved $293 million in appropriations, including roughly $40 million for the Sexy Streets initiative. …

It then listed the different FY22-23 Sexy Streets Projects for each council district. For the Peninsula area (OB, Point Loma, Midway), the following were listed:

by Kevin Hastings

Yesterday, March 10, the California Coastal Commission voted in favor of Councilmember Jen Campbell’s short-term vacation rental (STVR) ordinance. This is a key approval before it can go into effect in the “Coastal Zone” which generally covers everything west of the I-5 freeway.

This was largely a foregone conclusion, because the Commission’s mission statement is to protect public access to the coast, which generally places the interests of tourists over residents. Coastal access is a noble endeavor and can mean many things, but increasingly over the past 10 years they’ve interpreted it to mean that existing residential neighborhoods should accommodate tourist lodging.

Jen Campbell’s ordinance in a nutshell

The light was just right. Here’s a dog at Dog Beach in Ocean Beach by Albert C Elliott, March 10, 2022.

By Geoff Page

Pickleball versus Tennis

The clash of an old venerable sport and a much, much younger, but fast-growing sport was the highlight of the regular monthly meeting of the Ocean Beach Planning Board, Wednesday, March 2nd.

The sport with a history that goes back about 1,000 years is tennis. The younger sport with a history that only goes as far back as 1965 is called pickleball.

It is important to deal with its name first. Here is the explanation

By Mat Wahlstrom

Even by the terms of the recent years’ fire sale of our city, this week has been exceptional.

On Monday, March 7, we got the launch of “Bridge to Homes,” a plan to spend over $80 million in public funds to make construction of 662 units of low income housing ‘financially feasible.’